Jeanne Stein - Haunted

This was a difficult book to write because there is a war going on south of our borders and we seem powerless to do anything about it. But that’s the great thing about writing fiction: I can take a problem I’m interested in and “solve” it, if only temporarily and on a small scale, through the efforts of my heroine.

As for the writing process itself, I have the usual suspects to thank. Members of the Pearl Street Critique: Mario Acevedo, Warren Hammond, Tamra Monahan, Aaron Ritchey, Tom and Margie Lawson and Terry Wright.

For correcting my Spanish: Mario Acevedo, Warren Hammond and Mario’s friend Armando Provencio.

For being there in this crazy book business: my agent, Scott Miller of Trident Media, and my editor, Jessica Wade at Penguin (and their hardworking staff members).

For support and encouragement: loyal friends and readers who tell me they love Anna as much as I do.

And for everything else: Phil, who is always ready to discuss story with me, and Jeanette, who is becoming known far and wide for turning my books out on store shelves!

I’M STARING OUT THE BEDROOM SLIDING GLASS door feeling sorry for myself. Stupid, really, since being alone tonight is entirely my own fault. I could be in France with my family. Or at my business partner David’s for his annual Christmas Eve bash. Why aren’t I? Because both would require that I spend most of the time pretending to eat and drink, pretending to be human. A lot of work. So here I am, all by my lonesome the night before Christmas, feeling churlish, staring at a gray sheet of pounding rain.

Rain. It’s all we’ve had this winter. This is San Diego, for Christ’s sake. The land of predictable, even boring, weather. The land of a constant 72 degrees. The land of sun and blue sky.

Not this year.

I can count on one hand the number of nice days we’ve had. It’s beginning to get irritating. What’s the use of being a vampire who can go out in sunlight if there is no sunlight to go out in?

Even my reporter boyfriend, Stephen, is not around. He’s with the president visiting the troops overseas. He called me on Skype last night and we were able to exchange greetings. Greetings. What I want to exchange is bodily fluids. But that’s not going to happen for another ten days. Since there were about a hundred soldiers gathered around awaiting their turn on the computer, we couldn’t even talk dirty.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I need to do something. I need to share the misery. Where would a sulking vampire go to find other discontents as sorry ass as she is?

Luckily, I know just the place.

BESO DE LA MUERTE LOOKS EVEN MORE DESOLATE and run-down than usual, which says a lot since it’s basically a ghost town you won’t find on any map of northern Mexico. There’s only one building in the middle of what could be called Main Street, if the streets had names, that shows any sign of life. A string of blinking red-and-green Christmas lights slumps over the door to Culebra’s bar in an attempt, I suppose, to invoke some holiday cheer. Half the bulbs are burned out. The other half sputter unconvincingly.

What was Culebra thinking? Is this his idea of a joke—a fuck-you to the season and its forced joviality? Suddenly, I find myself enjoying those pathetic little lights. They make me smile.

Culebra and I share a warped sense of humor.

There’s a single car in front of the bar. A car that looks familiar. It gives me a moment’s pause until I recognize whose car it is. Then it takes me another minute to decide if I want to drag an unsuspecting mortal into the black hole of my self-pity.

The car belongs to Max, an ex. Who better to drag into a black hole than an ex? I shrug off any misgivings and walk inside.

Max and Culebra are seated at a table in the middle of the bar. Alone. They have an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel whiskey between them. Half empty. They’re puffing away on cigars and blowing smoke rings at each other. If Max didn’t look like a well-dressed thug clad all in black, and Culebra like an extra in a spaghetti western, poncho and all, I’d say they belonged in a gentlemen’s club.

Max spies me first. “Well, well. Look what the bat flew in.”

“Hilarious, Max. I see in the newspapers that you DEA dudes have really done your part to win the drug war. We’re practically narco free.”

He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. “Ouch.”

Go easy on Max, Culebra says, straight from his brain into mine, something he can do because he’s a shape-shifter and we share a psychic bond. He’s feeling sorry for himself. Alone at Christmas. You understand.

The last is said in a kind of “there’s a lot of that going around, isn’t there?” tone.

I just grunt.

Culebra pushes his chair back and stands up to scoot another chair over from a nearby table. “Sit.” He grabs another shot glass from the bar and pours a shot. “Drink.”

Loquacious as ever. But I do take the glass and sip. Smooth. Tickles the back of the throat and warms a path all the way down.

Culebra refills his own glass, then Max’s. “What brings you here? I figured you’d be at David’s shindig.”

I take another sip before answering. “Too many people I don’t know. Too much work pretending I might want to know them. He travels in a different circle.”

Max tilts his glass toward me. “You mean a human circle, don’t you?”

He has the knives out. “Who shoved a stake up your ass? I helped you not long ago if I remember correctly. You didn’t seem to mind what I was then.”

Culebra places the bottle down between Max and me and raises his glass. “Come on now. Truce. It’s Christmas Eve. Time for peace on Earth. Good will to . . . creatures, great and small. For some reason, fate has drawn us here together this evening. Let’s make the most of it. To friends.”

He shoves his glass toward us. And looks around expectantly. I wait to see if Max will move first. He remains stubbornly still, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for me.

Shit. I want another drink. I raise my glass and clink it against Culebra’s. Max follows, reluctantly. He avoids my eyes, but does let his glass touch mine.

We drink.

And drink some more. Not much conversation. Culebra isn’t even intruding into my head. Each of us seems content to be alone together to wallow in whatever pits of dejection brought us here.

Alcohol, like blood, is absorbed directly into my system. After a half dozen shots, the booze loosens my tongue. There’s a question I’ve wanted to ask these two since I first saw Max and Culebra together a year and a half ago. I had just become vampire and was sent to Beso de la Muerte to hunt down the vamp who made me. Max was working undercover in the DEA and he was here, too, on an assignment. He never gave me a direct answer to what he was doing here then, and it seems the perfect opportunity to get that answer now.

I pour each of them another shot and dive in. “How’d you two come to know each other?”

At first I think Max is going to counter with some bullshit about classified DEA information or fall back on the old “if I tell you, I have to kill you” dodge. But he does neither. He looks over at Culebra and Culebra shrugs.